Issue 08-07-2016
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Isms and ists
A year or so ago our Local Meeting introduced name labels for members and regular attenders. Like some other Friends, I felt a resistance to the idea but have begun to feel more comfortable about pinning my name to myself. I can see how this helps enquirers and newer attenders....
Top stories
Drugs: a life of their own
My interest in illegal drugs policy began when I went to work as a psychologist in the English prison service in 1974. Other influences have been meeting with Bolivian Quakers whose farmhouses had been stripped by the army looking for cocaine laboratories, seeing thousands of women in prison for drug offences...
From here to where?
A Friend recently wrote, in a book review of A Man that Looks on Glass by Derek Guiton, that ‘The Society of Friends is in crisis’. Is it … and in what way? A few years ago an elder commented to me: ‘If you ask 30,000 Quakers what the Society of Friends...
The Friends of God
The Friends of God were a lay organisation that arose in Germany in the fourteenth century. Martin of Mayence once observed that ‘the Friends’ were ‘more in harmony with the ways of Jesus than any of the Church authorities’. They were vigorously denounced by the Inquisition in 1390 – a familiar experience...
Friends arrested at Burghfield
Three Quakers were arrested at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) Burghfield on 27 June for their part in a nonviolent action outside the gates of the factory near Reading during ‘No Faith in Trident’ Day.
Meeting for Sufferings: BYM trustees’ report
Meeting for Sufferings met at Friends House in London on Saturday 2 July and, unusually, shared the building with about 900 joyfully singing Catholics. The first item of business was the Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) trustees’ report of their meeting held from 17 to 19 June at Bull Street Meeting House in Birmingham. Their...
All articles
Meeting for Sufferings: Changes to senior management
Ingrid Greenhow, clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) trustees, told Meeting for Sufferings that changes to Management Meeting were approved at the BYM trustee meeting in June.
Meeting for Sufferings: Refugees and asylum seekers
Minutes from Notts and Derby Area Meeting and Mid-Essex Area Meeting concerning the refugee crisis were sent to Meeting for Sufferings.
Meeting for Sufferings: Arms sales to Saudi Arabia
Helen Drewery, general secretary of Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW), updated Meeting for Sufferings on work being undertaken regarding UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Meeting for Sufferings: Taxes for peace
Meeting for Sufferings was told of recent developments towards conscientious objection to military taxation.
Meeting for Sufferings: New names for rooms
Meeting for Sufferings was told that rooms at Friends House will be named after well-known Quakers. Each room will have a plaque outside the door saying who the person was. This is seen as a form of outreach.
Meeting for Sufferings: Yearly Meetings past and future
Representatives on Meeting for Sufferings were given the opportunity to reflect on Yearly Meeting (YM) 2016, held in May, and to begin the process of looking ahead to future YMs.
Meeting for Sufferings: In the wake of the EU referendum
A change to the agenda of Meeting for Sufferings was made to allow time for reflection on the recent EU referendum and forty minutes were given to ministry before the close of the morning session.
Meeting for Sufferings: The role of Spirit highlighted in interfaith report
Mark Lilley, assistant clerk of the Quaker Committee for Christian and Interfaith Relations (QCCIR), began his report to Meeting for Sufferings: ‘What lies at the heart of this report is the ‘Spirit’ – from the spirit of change in the religious landscape, to a Spirit-led church, to new forms of spirituality...
Meeting for Sufferings: Travelling minute
Meeting for Sufferings approved a travelling minute for Paul Parker, Britain Yearly Meeting recording clerk, and Deborah Rowlands, clerk of the Yearly Meeting (YM).
Meeting for Sufferings: Meeting for Sufferings on the move
The ‘Meeting for Sufferings Roadshows’ in 2014 and 2015 met Friends around Britain. In some places they were asked why Sufferings was ‘almost’ always held in London.
Meeting for Sufferings: Appeals process to be reviewed
The Church Government Advisory Group met at Friends House on 11 April. They sent a minute to Meeting for Sufferings asking that a review of the appeal process against decisions by Area Meetings be reviewed. These are found in Quaker faith & practice 4.25 and 4.26. A draft set of Terms of Reference...
Meeting for Sufferings: New Sufferings clerks
The Committee on Clerks brought forward the names of Anne Ullathorne to serve as the clerk and Margaret Bryant to serve as the assistant clerk of Meeting for Sufferings from 1 January to 31 December 2017.
West Bank and Israel the 2016 Adderbury focus
A fifty-strong audience attended the historic Oxfordshire Meeting house at Adderbury on 19 June for this year’s Adderbury Gathering.
Ada Salter Day
The 150th birthday of Friend and social reformer Ada Salter will be marked on 15 and 16 July.
Eye - 08 July 2016
Wells and wild flowers Friends in Wells-next-the-Sea have been sowing seeds of outreach and reaping a harvest of donations for the Local Meeting and the homeless charity Emmaus. ‘A Bouquet of Songs’ was a concert that combined participation singing with some solo songs about flowers and trees. A local singer,...
Letters - 08 July 2016
EU referendum I have been a Quaker for twenty-four years and I voted ‘Leave’. It was not about money – millions, billions and trillions are just words to me – nor immigration, which I see as unavoidable. What bothered me was that EU laws override UK laws. Laws affecting British citizens should...